


Good Times, Bad Times

by orphan_account



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: (I have two possible outcomes depends how I’m feeling), (or maybe not I haven’t written that far yet), (sometimes), (yes most of the relationships are het but Jared is bi and Zoe is queer), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad impulse control, F/M, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV jumping, Slow Build, dealing with childhood trauma, ghost au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I’m your ghost therapist in a way. I just like to call myself that. To help you through bad times and stop you from killin’ yourself.”“Is that why you’re here?”“I’m your anti-suicide ghost therapist.”“Why do I need an anti-suicide ghost therapist?”“Because you’re suicidal. I really have to spell everythin’ out to you, huh?”
Relationships: Alana Beck/Original Male Character(s), Evan Hansen/Zoe Murphy, Jared Kleinman/Original Female Character(s), Miguel/Connor Murphy (Dear Evan Hansen), Zoe Murphy/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. I’m Only Sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> Title is by Led Zeppelin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is by The Beatles (funny bc I don’t like the beatles it’s bc I’m gay and have good music taste)

04/09/19

Loud laughing sounds in Evans ears, his back unbelievably sweaty, while desperately trying to keep his backpack from falling away from his side. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs them with the palms of his hands, leaning forward then falling back as the bus stops at a red light. He yawns and looks out the window at a run down little house with a sagging roof and broken screen door. At his side, his backpack falls over despite the stillness as if an invisible person was pranking him. He doesn’t want to turn around a check for anyone who could be doing that; teenagers are too judgemental, so instead he huffs and sits it back up. There’s a worry at the front of his mind which blocks out the podcast that his water bottle is leaking inside his backpack and ruining all his schoolwork and books. 

The bus stops in front of his slightly menacing school. Everyone stands and gets off quickly, Evan stepping aside and pausing before entering the building to brace himself. He’s never been a high school senior before. It’s his first time. And hopefully only time. Will people begin paying attention to him because of it? Does he even want people to pay attention to him for it? He totally can see himself getting overwhelmed within a month and— _no_. Dr Sherman told him never to assume the worst. Try as hard as he can to assume the, say, fifth to worst. 

Not thirty seconds pass until a kid shoves him and he’s forced to make his way inside. He forgot how crowded the halls are as soon as the buses arrive. Sometimes, Heidi will drop him off on her way to work so he’s at school before everyone else and has twenty minutes of the school being silent. Sure, he usually helps Mrs Walters set up her classroom for the day, but that’s because Mrs Walters really likes Evan and asks him. And when a math teacher likes a student, one must keep that friendship going. 

The first part of the day goes by quickly. He has AP English for the first half of the day, but PE for the second half. He considers maybe going ahead and breaking his arm to get out of PE for a few weeks. And then his ankle. They can’t force him to play basketball when he can barely walk on his right foot or hold a pencil. When the bell rings, signalling the end of class and beginning of lunch hour, Evan is the first one in the hallway. He rushes through a crowd of dazed and confused freshmen to his locker and grabs his lunch before anyone can shove him out of their way to go vape in the bathroom. 

Evan finds a seat at one of the small, two-person tables in the courtyard. He places his water bottle, which is approximately seven years old and cracked to hell but still works, and a little bag of fruit snacks on the table in front of him. He opens the baggie, takes a bright orange gummy and chews it as he digs around his backpack for Hamlet. Ms Robertson is famous in this school for being a fantastic English teacher, as opposed to the other senior English teacher, Dr Harry. Dr Harry has a PhD in _something_ (she won’t tell anyone) but instead of pursuing anything and using that PhD for _anything_ decent, she chose to become a high school English teacher. 

So far, Evan likes Ms Robertson. She seems very chill and genuinely happy to be teaching students. She stopped the class a couple times to tell stories about her travels around the world, though, and assigned an essay about act one of Hamlet due the next week. But the essay thing is fair; she is an English teacher, after all. At least she’s pretty. She’s a twenty nine year old Scottish woman, a relief against Dr Harry’s sixty-something year old self.

“Hey, handsome,” is the thing that knocks Evan out of his trance. He looks up from Hamlet and Jared is sitting down and flinging his backpack to the ground. 

“I’m...okay,” Evan sighs. He hates the fact that Jared never calls him by his actual name. It’s always things that sound similar to his last name. Sometimes it’s not even that. For a while last year Jared called him MMMbop because it’s by Hanson. 

“What? It’s either handsome or handsoap,” Jared shrugs and opens his Tupperware container of baby carrots and celery, “you choose.”

“Handsoap. Y’know, because at least, uh, eavesdroppers won’t think we’re gay.”

Jared grins out a laugh. “Bitch, eavesdroppers already think we’re gay. And I’m okay with them thinking _I’m_ gay. Might make homophobic girls get with me to try to _turn me back_ , or whatever, or another dude-who-likes-dudes try to get with me because I’m the only piece of ass—or dick—they can get.”

“Your brain works in exciting ways, Jared,” Evan mutters and chews on a purple gummy. He marks his page in Hamlet and puts it down, looking just past Jared at one of the gardens. Beside one of the younger trees stands a plaque. Evans memorised what it says. He’s read it hundreds of times before school before Mrs Walters asked him for help. 

_In loving memory of Connor Murphy. He was an intelligent young man, loving brother and son, and never put the needs of his above others. He will be sorely missed by the students and faculty of Leaside High School_  
_1999-2017_  
_Donated by the Murphy Family_

Evan speaks the thing in his head. He’d wondered for hours what his plaque would say if he ever died. Something along the lines of _not a single soul knew this soul_ , probably. If he ever does get a plaque. Connor’s says it was donated by his own family. Heidi wouldn’t be able to do that. Plaques are expensive, and he knows for sure the school would never pay for it. 

“What are you looking at?” Jared asks quietly. He turns around and spots the plaque, then back to the table, and crunches on a baby carrot. “Forgot that thing was there,”

“How, um, how—how do you think he, like, died?”

“Who? The kid on the sign? Dunno. Probably murdered. Or cancer,” Jared shrugs. 

A voice in the back of Evans head insists suicide. But that doesn’t make any sense. The plaque says he was a loving brother and son who put others first. Those don’t sound like traits of someone who would kill themselves. But the voice just keeps saying it was suicide, and Evan is convinced Connor Murphy did kill himself. 

“I think he committed suicide,” Evan states sadly. Jared jumps back and shakes his head, trying to comprehend what Evan just suggested. 

“Holy shit, dude. A little dark, don’t you think?” Jared says, his voice lowered in fear of someone listening. He doesn’t care for people listening unless it’s something that doesn’t have a chance of benefiting him. And then he’d rather not a single soul hear what he has to say. 

“Not any darker than being murdered! Suicide is just—just self-murder,” Evan tries justifying. His eyes seem to zoom in on an ant crawling around on the table and he focuses on it like his life depends on it. He feels a light smack laid on his upper arm, Jared gasping loudly in offense. 

“I don’t know if this is a bad attempt at a suicide joke, but it’s seriously not funny, man.”

Evan clicks his tongue and chews on a yellow gummy. It’s not lemon flavoured. It’s artificial banana. Usually he would spit it out—artificial banana is the worst of the artificial fruit flavourings—but it doesn’t seem right for the situation, “it seems...it seems like you’re implying there’s such thing as a, uh, as a good suicide joke.”

“Yeah, there is. You’re like a fucking sixty-year-old man or some shit. Our generation is all about wanting to die,” Jared snaps off a piece of a baby carrot and chews loudly. “Download TikTok and you’ll see,” he then sits back and stretches, “so, what kind of hellhole is the school faculty putting you through for the next two and a half months?”

And that’s when they find out they share PE together. So at least Evan won’t be all alone doing nothing in PE. He can pretend to participate while Jared shows him memes and _educates him on the world of today_. 

They walk into the Gymnasium together, Jared winking at a couple people he makes eye contact with. A new girl neither of them have ever seen before grins back and Jared smacks Evan’s arm in excitement. 

“Dude! Girlfriend material right there.” 

“We have literally never seen her before in our—in our lives,” Evan smiles at her and she ignores him. Maybe Jared is right? “She could be from, like, Siberia for all we know.”

“I don’t care. Russian chicks are hot,” Jared shrugs. They sit at the top row of the bleachers as they wait for class to start. They sit and listen to everyone’s conversations. Well, Evan does. Jared keeps making eye contact and grinning at the new girl in silence. 

The speaking and laughing of his classmates is drowned out by ringing in Evan’s ears when he turns his head the moment Zoe Murphy enters the gymnasium. She’s all alone, a sight no one sees too often. She’s one of the popular unpopular people at school. One of the people everyone knows and likes but isn’t all snobby and loud about it. And she might be the girl Evan has hopelessly fallen in love with over the years they’ve gone to school together.

They’ve only shared a few classes with one another since middle school. Sixth grade was when they met. They became friends after sitting next to each other in math class all year, but didn’t share another class until tenth grade when Zoe had developed a friend group that Evan was not a part of. After that he admired from afar, joining any extracurriculars she did in an attempt to get close again, sit near her during lunch or any shared classes, offer study help in subjects she wasn’t good at. Nothing worked but Evan was already head-over-heels and so didn’t stop trying. 

“Dude, you’re not still obsessing over Zoe, right?” Jared whispers. Zoe sits in the row in front of them, approached by an acquaintance who she starts a conversation with easily. Evan feels himself becoming entranced by the way her hair falls to her shoulders and curls around her ears. The freckles on her ears and cheeks are like constellations, the beauty only encouraged by the little bit of highlighter on her cheekbone. 

“I’m—I’m not obsessing over her,” Evan tuts, “besides, it’s bet—better crushing on someone I’ve known for six years than a, uh, than a Russian exchange student you’ve only, um, winked at from across the room,” 

“I’ll let you know, Katyushka is actually my best friend in the entire world and we’ve known each other for _seven_ years,” Jared declares, then adds proudly, “she’s shown me her tits,” and laughs. Evan shakes his head, not believing Jared is actually a real person he chooses to be friends with. Actually, they didn’t really choose to be friends. Their parents just kind of met in a parenting class in 2004 and forced them to be friends. 

A minute or two pass and one of the PE teachers stands in front of the bleachers, rolling out a massive old TV. He puts a VHS tape in the TV and stands next to it while it plays. Barely anyone actually listens to it. They’ve grown tired of hearing it on the first day of the quarter since ninth grade. 

Evan’s body fills with exhaustion as he sits down on the bus after school. It’s almost as if his soul splits in two and he feels empty all of a sudden. And he doesn’t want to move a muscle. He wants to forget how to exist. And he doesn’t even fix his backpack when it falls over. All he wants to do is lay down and have a void engulf him until he’s nothing but a distant memory to the two people who know him. His backpack fixes itself, and he barely takes the time to realize how weird it is. 

He thinks about Connor Murphy’s plaque in the courtyard. And he thinks about how Connor Murphy’s family donated it three years ago. And he thinks about how he won’t get a plaque. Heidi won’t donate a plaque in his memory. He’ll just get a shoutout on the morning announcements, probably, and it feels like someone flicks the back of his head. Evan flinches but doesn’t acknowledge it further. 

On a whim, Evan gets off the bus a couple stops earlier than he has to. At one of the stops closest to Home Depot. An invisible force seems to be trying desperately to keep him from going into the building, but he beats it and enters and only asks one employee where the ropes are. He makes up some lie about helping his dad with some work project even though the employee most definitely doesn’t care. Evan makes his way to where the employee pointed and stares blankly at the rolls of ropes hanging from the shelf. 

“Anything I can help you with, Evan?” An employee asks from the left of Evan. It snaps him out of his blank staring and he looks up at the second employee of the day. He nods, then turns back. It’s as he looks down at the ropes which are only six feet long he notices, in his peripheral, that the second employee of the day is kind of...floating a couple inches off the ground.

“I am so sorry if this is rude, but where…why—how are you doing that?” Evan mumbles as he gestures at the employees feet. The employee kicks his leg out and jumps so he’s sitting cross-legged in mid-air. 

“Thank you for asking,” the employee brushes tangled brown hair out of his face, “I’m a ghost. Your ghost, specifically.”

Evan feels himself go as pale as the _ghost_ sitting in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a Tumblr blog simply for this work: @gtbtao3. You can contact me there, as well as see any updates


	2. The Cold Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is by greta van fleet go stan them please esp sam

Evan feels himself go as pale as the _ghost_ sitting in front of him. He blinks in disbelief. He can’t even deny it. The ghost is sitting in mid-air. Maybe he’s hallucinating it? He recently switched medications. Maybe it’s a side effect of switching meds for the first time in a while. But Evan’s nose is filled with the strong scent of very masculine cologne that he knows he would never wear. 

“That’s—that’s impossible. Ghosts don’t exist,” Evan says. The ghost shakes his head and unfolds his legs so it looks like he’s sitting on a chair. But five feet off the ground. 

“Sorry to break it to you, but we totally do,” the ghost shrugs and leans back to lay down on his invisible table five feet off the ground. He swirls around so he’s staring upside down at Evan and his tangled mess of hair falls. “Fuck, I should introduce myself, huh? My name is Connor, and I am your ghost,”

Evan turns around on his heels and begins walking away. He feels the ghost—Connor—following him. He feels the panic Connor is experiencing. And then Connor calms down and is overcome with relief as he follows Evan out of the huge building. 

Evan isn’t quite sure how he’s feeling. He’s definitely having trouble processing a ghost’s existence. Not a bone is his body doesn’t want to feel angry. But he isn’t sure why he wants to be angry—there’s not a plausible reason why he should be angry. He doesn’t even get angry very often. 

He walks down the road, desperately trying to process what’s going on. Ghosts don’t exist. Ghosts don’t exist. Why did Connor refer to himself as _Evan’s_ ghost? Did he get _assigned_ a ghost? How does that work? Is Connor, the ghost, Connor Murphy? That’s ridiculous. This Connor doesn’t look like a loving brother and son who put others first. He looks tired and sickly and pale and the type of person to call his dad by his first name. 

“You can really read people,” Connor jumps over Evan’s head and walks backwards in front of him. Wait. He doesn’t walk. He kind of moonwalks. And his feet still don’t touch the ground. 

“What?”

“Okay, first thing you need to know. I can hear almost everything you think. You don’t have to speak out loud. I strongly advise against it because no one but you can see me and if you speak out loud, it looks like you’re havin’ a conversation with thin air,” Connor explains. The light shining on him goes right through him. It’s like he’s being illuminated by an outside source. “And how do you know my last name? Like, that’s fuckin’ weird.”

“You already know my name.”

“In the head. Before I fully latch onto someone, I kind of phase in and out of existence near them for a few hours. I’ve been with you a total of, like, two hours through the day,” Connor turns around and walks side-by-side with Evan. The light doesn’t go directly through him. It moves through him like it does water, casting a web-like design on the pavement. Not a single cog in Evan’s brain is working correctly. 

“Why are you even here? Like, with me? I don’t deserve a ghost following me around everywhere,” Evan says. He doesn’t dare look up at Connor. He’s imagining all of it for one final unrealistic fantasy before he dies. 

“That’s exactly why. I’m not a ghost assigned to you to haunt you for a couple days and then leave. Those guys do exist and they’re real dicks. I’m, uh...think of me as your ghost therapist.”

Ghost therapist? What the hell does that even mean? Evan already has a real, live therapist; he doesn’t need a fake, dead one. Connor shakes his head and wraps an arm around Evans shoulders. His arm is uncomfortably cold and so sends shivers down Evan’s spine. He isn’t able to deny the existence of Connor anymore. The sun is shining right down on his back and the moment Connor takes his arm away, warmth is back. 

“I’m your ghost therapist in a way. I just like to call myself that. To help you through bad times and stop you from killin’ yourself.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m your anti-suicide ghost therapist.”

“Why do I need an anti-suicide ghost therapist?”

“Because you’re suicidal. I really have to spell everythin’ out to you, huh?”

Evan shakes his head in disagreement. “No. I’m just confused. I’m not—I don’t…Well, I’ve wanted to die for my whole life. Why does God—or whoever’s in charge of the afterlife—care _now_?”

“You’ve wanted to die your whole life but you never had a chance of actually _actin’ upon it_. In the past you’ve been scared of hangin’ yourself, or throwin’ yourself off a bridge, or swa—get it? That’s why I’m here. To stop you from doin’ X Y Z thing to off yourself,” Connor explains. He holds a leg out in front of Evan to trip him. Evan jumps over the leg clumsily and Connor begins losing his shit with laughter. “I’m not made up of matter. We can’t physically interact.”

“So now I look insane to that person who just drove by,” Evan mutters with annoyance. Connor taps his own head and Evan realises he spoke aloud. 

“Now you look even more insane to someone livin’ in fuckin’ Toronto talkin’ to yourself,” Connor says matter-of-factly, “Which is, at least the last time I was here, sayin’ somethin’.”

He has a point. Everyone in Toronto is literally insane. Mostly for living in Toronto. Maybe it’s a side effect of being born here. Evan’s not completely insane. He was born in Newfoundland—St Johns—but Heidi moved them to Ontario when Evan was a couple months old in an attempt at a better life. Better money. No weird ex to stalk her and insist she would be a bad mother. Only one of those things came to be. A bonus of having a Newfie mom but living in Ontario is having the weirdest accent anyone has ever heard. 

“I don’t need to know your entire life story, man,” Connor mutters. Evan jumps at the voice to his left, forgetting he has a ghost following him around. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you wonder what it’d be like to grow up out east? Isn’t everyone, like, super fuckin’ poor?”

“We—that’s, uh, that’s why mom and I came out here. She didn’t want to be another, um, poor teen mom in Newfoundland,” Evan takes a moment and when Connor doesn’t add anything, he does, “But, uh, yeah, I do wonder where I’d be if we stayed. I don’t—I don’t think my life would be very good. I’m glad we moved.”

“Is that crazy ex who insisted she would be a bad mom your dad?”

“No, no, no, no, no. My parents got married when they were, uh, 18 and pregnant with me on their—on their honeymoon. The ex was someone my mom dated when she was in, uh, high—high school. He was still all stuck up on her. Jealous of my—of my dad. When I was born and, uh, Mom suggested they move to get away from him, my dad refused to go. They were only married for just over a year before they divorced.

“My dad now lives as an oil rigger in, uh, Alberta. He has new kids and a—a, uh, new wife. I’ve only seen him twice my...my entire life. The first time was my bar mitzvah. Second one was a year after, uh, that because he had a layover going back to Newfoundland and—and needed a place to stay.”

Connor doesn’t reply. And Evan doesn’t continue. And Evan forces himself to think as little as possible. He doesn’t want Connor knowing so much about him so soon. It’s weird. 

05/19/19

Evan flings his backpack to the floor. 

At the front of the classroom, Ms Robertson clicks around on her laptop and turns on the projector for later on in class. Well, not later on in class. When class starts. The screen fires up slowly, a YouTube video fading onto it. Evan makes out the words on the screen. _BLC Theatre presents Hamlet by William Shakespeare_. Another student walks in and sits in the row in front of Evan as Ms Roberson begins checking different time stamps in the three hour long video, trying to find a specific scene. 

Connor sits on Evan’s desk and rolls his fingers through a pencil and blows on a paper but it doesn’t move. The cold wind just hits Evan’s arm. He doesn’t complain, though. He’s already had enough complaining for the day. Connor really didn’t want to be in class so early. He almost refused to leave Evan’s locker. Which led them to discover that they can’t move more than ten feet away from the other without their intestines feeling like they’re being torn out. But Evan continued walking through the pain, getting worse by each step, and Connor eventually followed. The normal feeling of stillness in their stomachs became valued much more than before. 

The other student digs through their backpack. They pull out a small, highly used sketchbook and the shortest pencil Evan has ever seen. Connor waves a hand in front of Evans eyes and points at the other student. 

“What?”

“I wanna see their art!” Connor says and hops off the desk.

“Cool! Do that then,” Evan shrugs. 

Connor hovers over the student and stares down at their sketchbook. Evan can feel his stomach turning from how far away Connor is. They’re so very nearly at the ten feet mark. But Connor doesn’t seem to notice. He’s so enthralled by the other student’s art. The student draws a few lines then erases them and Connor returns at the appearance of a small group of teenagers. “I drew when I was alive.”

“Were you good?” 

“I think so. My art got into the art gallery a couple times. Not, like, ‘cause I was professionally doin’ it or anythin’. The art gallery does things with schools every year. Mrs Galski thought my art was good enough for it,” Connor then adds sadly, “every year except senior.”

Mrs Galski is a name Evan doesn’t know. The art teacher isn’t even a woman. His name is Mr Jones. Evan considers for a moment that the Mrs Galski Connor is talking about left the school before Evan arrived. But he arrived in 2016. And Connor died in 2017. It doesn’t make sense unless Mrs Galski left at the end of the 2016 school year. 

“Who’s Mrs Galski?”

Connor rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue but answers nonetheless. Evan was partially right. She was the previous art teacher. He learns that right after Connor killed himself, he was attached to a girl in senior year at the time. Her name was Chrys. She was an art student. Mrs Galski took Connors death really hard; they were really close, and retired half way through the year and a new teacher took over. Mr Jones. 

“What was Chrys like?”

“Kind of a bitch, not gonna lie. But, holy fuck, super smart. Her dream was to get into Harvard and become an archeologist. I was with her for, like, five months I think. She got accepted into Harvard then got overwhelmed and within a week killed herself.”

Evan doesn’t say anything. Connors voice cracks and his eyes become glassy. He looks down at his hands, covering his face with messy hair. 

“She—”

“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” Connor snaps. “Don’t ever think I don’t wanna do somethin’ I’m doin’. If I don’t wanna do it I won’t,” He then pauses, “she drowned herself. Tied herself to a concrete brick and let herself sink to the bottom of a lake. It was the worst. I tried to stay at the surface. Maybe she would change her mind. Maybe she’d be able to untie herself and swim up. Maybe she’d realise her dreams were comin’ true and there were reasons to go on. Maybe the pain we were feelin’ would be enough to convince her not to do it. She never did come back up. I’ll never feel pain bad as when she and I were twenty-five feet apart. 

“And then suddenly the pain stopped and I barely had a minute to realise she’d died. She was gone. And then I was in the basement of some old house with a futon in front of me. I didn’t have time to fully process it. It’s still the worst.”

“Have you ever been able to ask her if she regrets it?” Surely the answer is yes. They must have crossed paths at some point. Been able to catch up. See each other for the first time in three years. 

“No. Suicide ghosts are the most unlucky of all the ghosts. Suicide is a choice and isn’t somethin’ unavoidable like cancer or murder or old age. If were connected to someone and didn’t succeed in convincin’ them not to kill themselves, I’m not allowed to see them ever again. The pieces of shit in charge of choosin’ our assignments go out of their way to make sure we never see each other.”

The bell for class rings and people slowly begin filling the seats. Connor gets off the desk and sits under it instead. Evan assumes it’s because he’s sad after talking about Chrys and embarrassed about it. He wonders what happens if someone tries to kill themselves but it doesn’t work. Does the ghost therapist following them around move onto the next one? Do they stay? Does the person not get another ghost therapist? He wonders if Connor knows and then if he should even ask Connor. 

After another minute or two, Ms Robinson stands and begins the class. She tells a story from her time in high school. Then plays a couple scenes of Hamlet from the YouTube video. And Evans pretty sure he and only a handful of other students are paying attention. Connor doesn’t make another appearance except for two minutes half way through class to count the people either sleeping or dozing off. The count is six out of twenty. Evan has to stop himself from laughing at that fact. 

Class finally ends when Evan himself is almost asleep as Ms Robinson goes on about their lesson plan for the rest of the quarter. He exits the room with Connor trailing slowly behind and is greeted with Jared waiting patiently for him. Jared waves a paper in front of his face, groaning loudly with complaint. 

“Who’s this kid?” Connor asks. He phases directly through a few students who each look behind them in confusion as to why a pocket of coldness just washed over them. 

“What is is, Jared?” Evan says out loud. Jared waves the paper more vigorously until it’s ripped out of his hand by Evan, who reads through it quickly. It’s a sign up sheet for the girls basketball team. 

“I don’t know if you forgot, but, I’m not a girl. And I—I don’t play basketball.”

“No! Look at this name!” Jared points at the third name written. In kind of sharp writing says Lizzie Sullivan. “She’s not Russian! Her name isn’t Katyushka. It’s Lizzie!” The grin on Jared’s face is too bright. He’s far too excited to just know a girls name. 

“Were you following her around?” Evan asks and stares down at the paper. He knows Jared will drag him to Lizzie’s basketball games if she makes the team just to act as a wingman. It’s happened before. Evan isn’t the best wingman ever but Jared doesn’t have any other friends. Unless his brother counts. His brother and people he plays Dungeons and Dragons online with. 

“Chris, I was just waiting to see which clubs I could join when she went ahead and signed up for basketball tryouts.”

It takes Evan a moment to understand the nickname. Chris? Ah. Chris Hansen. From _To Catch a Predator_. Jared’s going through another TV show clip on YouTube binging phase. Last time he watched as many _Kitchen Nightmares_ clips as humanly possible and didn’t speak about anything else for a week. 

“Tell him not to call you that,” Connor says. They stop at Evans locker and Connor runs an arm through Jared’s neck. He laughs when the baby hairs stand on end from coldness. 

“Are you gonna start, like, start stalking her?” Evan grabs his water bottle and a bag of Cheerios from his backpack. 

“What, like you with—” Jared doesn’t get to finish his sentence before his mouth is being covered by a suddenly sweaty Evan. He stares at Connor with panic. There’s no way Evan’s gonna let Connor know about that. About her. 

“Please don’t call me Chris.”

“O-Okay? Back to MMMbop, then. Anyway, sign ups for band auditions are out. Right near the office. Get that little flute of yours out and play to your heart’s content,” Jared laughs at takes the basketball sheet back. He stares at Lizzie’s signature dreamily. They’ve not even spoken to one another and he’s already head over heels for her. She probably doesn’t even know his name. 

“That’s fuckin’ weird. Tell him that’s fuckin’ weird,” Connor pokes Evan on the shoulder. No pressure is put down but Evan can feel a little circle of cold through his shirt. “Also, you play the flute?”

Yes he does. It runs in the family. Evan’s grandpa started it. Taught Heidi. Who then taught Evan and is most likely expecting Evan to carry it on to his own children. If he ever has any. At this rate he’ll be dead in a few months. But Heidi still forces herself to have hope. Forced him to join the school band in seventh grade and he’s been doing it since. Barely has to audition anymore. The band director, Henry (who insists on them calling him by his first name), told him in junior year the audition is just a formality. Make it seem fair to the other hopeful students. 

“You should—you should probably put that paper back where you found it. Other girls wanna, uh, sign up,” Evan says and sits in the same spot as yesterday. Jared nods in agreement and leaves to put the sign up sheet back where it belongs. 

Evan managed to avoid Zoe so they barely see one another once during gym class. Maybe because he and Jared just sit on the side and make fun of the kids trying too hard. And Zoe barely leaves the back of her team, half heartedly following the game around. So it’s easy to make sure Connor doesn’t see her. It’s not easy to not think about her, though. He panics just thinking about being on the same floor as her. Having gym class with her is bound to make Evan have a crisis. 

Jared goes off to flirt with Lizzie at some point, leaving Evan with the other five kids who don’t want to participate. He watches the game of dodgeball go on. Connor never mentions Zoe in their passionate conversation about how much dodgeball sucks and how weird Jared and Lizzie look awkwardly flirting with each other. At some point, Evan goes to sip from the water fountain near the door. There, he stares out into the hall and barely processes another student walk by with a person following closely behind her. Not a person. A ghost, it looks like. 

The student is a black girl dressed in a flowery dress with her hair tied up neatly. Her backpack is bursting at the seams and she talks intensely—out loud—to the ghost following her. The ghost is a blonde girl with a hat placed loosely on her head. The student stops in her tracks and twirls around to speak directly to her ghost. 

“I do not care what you are here for! I do not need you! I am _fine_!” The student shrieks. Evan wonders what she looks like to people who can’t see the ghost. Probably insane. 

“I’m here for a reason, Alana. You do need me. You aren’t fine. Those are the exact reasons I’m here.”

Evan checks around him for any PE instructors watching him before lazily jogging toward the student—Alana. He’s confused as to why there’s another ghost. Is he able to see other ghosts? That’s almost as impossible as being able to see _one_ ghost. But his footsteps alert Alana of his presence and her face fills with shock as her eyes land on Connor. So does her ghost’s. And so does Connor’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhh,,,comments?


	3. All The Girls Love Alice

Evan checks around him for any PE instructors watching him before lazily jogging toward the student—Alana. He’s confused as to why there’s another ghost. Is he able to see other ghosts? That’s almost as impossible as being able to see _one_ ghost. But his footsteps alert Alana of his presence and her face fills with shock as her eyes land on Connor. So does her ghost’s. And so does Connor’s.

She tries stepping away from Evan. Then attempts to wriggle out of his grasp. But Evan stands still and keeps her from running away, her ghost helping out by moving further away in the opposite direction. 

“What are you doing? Why do you— _we_. Both of us…?” Alana asks vaguely. And yet the other three in the area know what she’s talking about. She stops trying to leave when Connor sits in mid-air. And then she looks over to her own ghost as if to wonder if she can do that to. Alana’s ghost copies Connor with difficulty but ends up sitting cross-legged five feet off the ground nonetheless. 

“You see—you see them too, right?” Evan asks in a low voice. Alana finally drags her eyes from her ghost and nods blankly. “Okay, good. I don’t like thinking I might just be going—going insane,” Evan sighs. 

“I’m Connor. Speak to her in your head. No one but us three can see her,” Connor mutters. A confused look upon Alana’s ghost’s face is met with a short explanation from Connor. He says he learned the hard way within the first week of being dead. What happened to Chrys that Connor learned it the hard way?

“I’m Alice,” Alana’s ghost says. She lays a hand upon her chest and becomes shocked when it phases directly through herself. 

Connor leans down to whisper, “she’s new to the whole _bein’ dead_ thing,” in Evan’s ear. Evan agrees with a short nod and turns back to Alana whose face is showing nothing but shock and confusion and evidently refusing to believe anything happening is real. 

“And I am leaving. This is—nope!” Alana spins on her heel to leave. And she gets a decent distance from them until Alice cries out in pain and clutches her stomach. Alana does so to and Alice stands by her side as soon as possible. They each follow the other down the hall, Alana silently saying things and Alice desperately trying to reply to her ability. 

“She’s only been dead for, like, a day. You can tell Alana's her first attachment. And considerin’ Alana’s panic…Alice’s a fuckin’ freshman ghostie,” Connor says, assuming he’s automatically right. And Evan can’t help but agree. All evidence is pointing toward Connor’s conspiracy being true. “I was all weird for a while like that with Chrys. And Randy. And then I got used to it.”

“What happened with you and Chrys that made her learn the hard way not to talk aloud to you?” Evan grimaces at how long the question is. But he can’t word it any better. He stands still in the hall, suddenly uncaring for class any longer. He is usually super anxious about missing class. He hates it. He missed a few days in a row in sophomore year and has never recovered from the four tests he had to take the day he got back. 

“Oh. Well, because no one but she could see me, it looked like she was talkin’ to herself. Got sent to the psych ward in the hospital for two weeks. Worst two weeks of my life. Well, not-life. Worst two weeks of my death.”

“And who’s Randy?” Evan knows the answer the moment is passes his lips. It’s a dumb question, he knows it. 

“The second person I was attached to. A college professor. His wife had just left him and his kids never visited him anymore. I was only with him for, like, a month, but it was the most frustrating month I’ve ever experienced. He was stubborn and selfish,” Connor makes faces and jerks his head to really send the point home, “refused to believe his wife left him for a good reason. Ended up gettin’ a student pregnant then datin’ her. I was unattached from him right after that.”

“Hey, Hansen! What do you think you’re doing!?” A PE teacher calls at him. Evan turns around to acknowledge him. “You’ve got balls to play with,” he adds with contempt(?) as Evan re-enters the Gymnasium. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s sexual harassment,” Evan says to Connor. Connor lets out a loud laugh. 

“Speakin’ of gettin’ students pregnant and datin’ them,” Connor mutters. 

Evan thinks about the first time he had to use the washroom with a ghost following him around. He hadn’t had someone else in the room with him as he peed since fourth grade. Hadn’t used a public restroom since eighth grade. He wonders what a treat showering will be for the pair of them. 

“Explain to me how Mr Willis can get me, a boy, pregnant?”

“He can’t anymore. But who knows what he does with little Alyssa over there?” Connor points at a student walking around toward the back of the gym. Her name is Nia. “Oh, well, _sorry_. Who knows what he does with little _Nia_ over there?” 

“Gross.”

Connor falls into fits of laughter. 

•

Evan sits at the kitchen table, hunched over his copy of Hamlet and desperately trying to ignore the loud hard rock music Connor convinced him to play. Evan hesitated to play it at first, telling the ghost he didn’t like that kind of music. But Connor whined and complained for only five minutes before Evan huffed and opened Spotify. And then thought for another two about which album by which hand he’d like to listen to. He settled on _Coda_ by Led Zeppelin. 

Connor pretends to play the drums along to _Walter’s Walk_. It’s insanely distracting in Evan’s peripheral. He snaps his book shut and turns to tell Connor off, but the front door clicks open. Connor freezes, then rushes to stare from the kitchen to the front foyer, and Evan trips over himself from sitting in the kitchen to fumbling with their shitty Bluetooth speaker in the living room. He turns to the front door, where Heidi is standing with a shocked yet happy expression. 

“I didn’t know you liked Led Zeppelin!” She says with a smile. She enters the house properly and gives Evan a kiss hello on the cheek. 

“Oh,” an awkward laugh, “yeah. I’m getting, uh, I’m getting into them.”

“I’m proud of you. Not many kids your age listen to their parents' music,” Heidi says. She walks directly through where Connor is standing and looks around, confused, when the cold air washes over her. “That’s how you know it’s not summer anymore. Random ass areas you can see your breath,” she mutters and plops her purse down on the table next to where Evan was just sitting. He scurries to pick up the book, remembering how much Heidi loves Shakespeare and not wanting her to go on an on about him again.

“You’re kind of a dick,” Connor remarks. He goes to smack the book out of Evan’s hand and falls into laughter when Evan flails to dodge him. 

“What was that?” Heidi says through an awkward laugh. 

“Just...shivers. Summer is over. You were right,” Evan grins even more awkwardly. He backs up slowly to place the book on a shelf for later, hoping against hope Heidi won’t see it. “I don’t think Led Zep—Zeppelin is really my, uh, parents music. I saw they stopped making music in, like, 1980. You were born in 1983.”

“Shit, your mom’s only 36? Either she’s really young or my parents are really old. Probably both.”

Connor speaks like he’s still alive. And like his parents are still his parents. They technically are. They’re just...alive. And Connor’s not. He wonders what Heidi will consider herself when Evan dies. Will she still call herself his mom? A mom at all? Because technically she would still be a mom, but at the same time she wouldn’t. That really makes no sense. Just forget everything he just said. Thought. At this point he can’t tell a difference. 

“They stopped officially in ‘82. But I still grew up with Led Zeppelin and the like. If you like them you’ll like Pink Floyd,” and at Evan’s confused look, Heidi adds, “y’know, the one with the prism and the rainbow,” she finally unpacks her purse and drops her Tupperware containers into the sink on her way to the bathroom. 

“Oh my god we should totally listen to Pink Floyd!” Connor exclaims. Evan rolls his eyes. He is tired enough of one intense band. He can’t go onto another. “God. Fuckin’ pussy. Can’t handle good ass music.”

“Guess not,” Evan shrugs. Neither he nor Connor realise he said it aloud until Heidi asks him what he said. Evan panics for a second then calls out a quick, “it was nothing!” 

“Oh, by the way. You’re going over to the Kleinman’s for dinner tonight. I have class until late so you’ll stay there for a couple hours, too, if that’s okay?” Heidi peeks her head around the bathroom door. Her hair is out of its usual updo but it’s stuck in the position from the sweat and grease of hours of labour. “I’ll be half an hour. Then I’m dropping you off.”

“Fantastic.”

•

Evan wondered how car rides with Connor would work. Because Evan can’t exactly open a door and wait for a ghost only he can see to get in. He has to get in at a normal pace but still let Connor in. 

“Y’know, I’ve been dead for almost three years now. And not once has someone worried so much about gettin’ me into a car,” Connor mutters from the backseat. He plays with his hair. The sun is going down behind them and what look like little dust particles float off of Connor. They float off him in all different directions but disappear once they’re about half a foot away from him. 

“You okay, Ev? What’s so interesting about the backseat?” Heidi asks. “A woman almost gave birth back there,” she adds nonchalantly. 

“What do you think happens when we die? Like, do we become ghosts or, like go to heaven or—or is it just like when we’re asleep but...for ever?” 

Heidi blinks. And Connor does too. He leans between the front seats and rests his head on his palm to listen better. “Oh, shit, I dunno,” Heidi admits, “why? Do I need to push up your next appointment with Dr Sherman?”

“No. Just...curious.”

“I’ll guess!” Connor grins, “you have an out of body experience for five minutes while tryin’ desperately to be alive again, and then you flicker in and out of existence around a total stranger for a few hours, and then you cannot leave their side for X amount of time until they either die or don’t need you anymore.”

“Shut up. It was a question for her.” Evan says to Connor only. Heidi stares forward, visibly exhausted, a worried look knitting her eyebrows together; he really shouldn't have asked that question. Now she thinks he’s going to go out and kill himself tonight. Connor nods shamelessly, running a hand directly though Heidi’s neck. 

“That’s fuckin’ weird, huh?” Connor says with a boyish grin. Evan stares at the arm going through his mother’s neck, hand unbloodied and Heidi none the wiser. 

“Little bit,” Evan says. He doesn’t realise he says it out loud until Heidi turns to him and Connor jerks his arm back. He leans back and rubs the arm as if soothing pain. 

“What was that, sweetie?”

“Sorry. Just. Lost in thought.”

Evan glares ahead at the road instead of looking insane and glaring at the backseat. 

•

Mrs Kleinman is on the front porch waiting for Evan when they pull up. She grins and flicks out her cigarette into the small pile of snow, the scent of tobacco wafting off of her horribly. Evan hates the scent. Heidi used to smoke, until Evan was in sixth grade and he complained about it. As far as he’s aware, she’s never lit a cigarette since. Mrs Kleinman—Alia—on the other hand… It doesn’t bother Evan quite as much as he’s only at their house, like, twice a month, but it does still stink. Jared’s gotten used to it. 

Alia greets him with a warm hug and a smile, waving enthusiastically to Heidi as she drives away. She ushers him inside and calls Jared downstairs to come say hello to his friend. Evan wishes the world would swallow him up as she says it. He feels his face heat up in embarrassment. 

“Robert will be home soon. Get comfortable,” Alia says with a smile. Evan knows he won’t follow her instructions. It doesn’t matter if he’s known her for fifteen years. He will never be comfortable in any home—not even his own. 

Jared slinks down the stairs and waves Evan down to the basement. “Dinner won’t be ready until Dad’s home,” Jared mutters, “which won’t be for another,” and checks his watch, “half hour. Minecraft?”

Evan nods like he does answering yes or no questions from strangers. Wide eyed and pretending to be sure about it, but, really, he just wishes he were dead. Jared nods once then turns on his PlayStation with a blank expression. 

“He’s very different here than at school,” Connor observes. He shuffles around Jared, inspecting for any sign of anything being wrong. It’s still weird not seeing Connor touch the ground properly. Or have the laws of gravity affect him properly. He lays in mid-air in a kind of enclosure around Jared, tickling the bottom of his nose with a grin. Jared sneezes. 

“It’s the parents. Everyone acts different around friends and people their own age than parents,” Evan explains. He flops down on one of the sofas and surprisingly catches the PlayStation controller Jared tosses his way. He grins and Jared gives a half-hearted thumbs up and lays down on the other sofa. Connor explores the basement as far as he can go. 

Maybe it’s the fact that Evan’s known Jared for his entire life, but he doesn’t get surprised when Connor discovers a used condom between one of the sofas and the wall. The ghost cries out in disgust. He says something about Jared getting it on with Lizzie already? And then tries to get Evan to ask about it. He will eventually. He’ll pretend to drop something down there. Pretend to just discover it’s there. Ask Jared who he’s having sex with. 

“No! Right now!” Connor pouts. He sits cross legged right in front of the TV and crosses his arms like a five year old. “Say it stinks down here.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Please! Don’t you want to make your little ghostie friend happy?”

“You’re not my friend,” Evan huffs. Jared finally gets the game set up so Evan has to lean over to see the TV past Connor. 

“God, just ask about it!” Connor throws himself out of the way and lays down dramatically, floating around in a circle. 

“I’m not. Not now, at least.”

“Why not!?”

“Because I don’t want to!”

“Do it.”

“Make me! You can’t even touch me!”

Jared whips his head around to stare at Evan. Evan pales. He wishes he were deader than dead. How is he to explain screaming into thin air? Oh, that’s right. He can’t. So he just leans back with a bright red face and stammers out an apology. It doesn’t suffice according to Jared. 

“Who the hell are you talking to? Thin air?” Jared asks. His voice is judgemental and it makes Evan flinch. He can tell Connor takes note of it. 

“No one! Just thinking out loud,” Evan mutters almost silently and slouches further into the couch, hoping against everything good he’ll get swallowed up into nothingness. 

“Dude, everyone thinks out loud sometimes. It’s never screaming at someone. There’s no one there!” Jared points directly at Connor. If it were a different time Connor would be bursting into laughter, but instead he stays silent. Evan stares at Connor. 

“I know. I’m sorry. It was...weird. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry,” Evan fumbles out. His mouth feels swollen and the PlayStation controller is slipping from his grasp. Tears well at the corners of his eyes but he doesn’t let them go anywhere. He doesn’t like making people feel guilty. “I’m sorry.”

“Bro, you apologised three times. If you say it one more time I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Jared huffs then turns back toward the TV. Evan almost apologises again. But he closes his mouth and almost hesitantly begins chopping down a tree. 

There’s twenty minutes of silence. Twenty minutes of building their own things. Twenty minutes of Connor trying to entertain himself. He finds a rubber glove somewhere near the condom, and quietly announces they’re definitely related. He pretends to climb on the roof while saying he’s Spider-Man. He floats around, laying in the air almost dramatically, and hums a song from earlier. 

Evan stares at Connor for a second, then puts down his controller. He takes in a deep breath. “Jared? Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Huh?” Jared is pulled out of the game forcefully, “do I..? Uh, no. After you die it’s nothingness. Or maybe Heaven and Hell exist. But, nah. Ghosts don’t exist and you have to be insane to think they do.” He pauses. “Why?”

“Just wondering. Been really into supernatural stuff on YouTube lately.”

“Weird. You’re usually horrified of that kinda shit.”

“I know,” Evan makes eye contact with Connor. The ghost has a distant look of melancholia in his eyes, overcome by a blank stare. He sighs inwardly then turns around to watch Jared building something. There is to be no condom or rubber glove discussion tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhh anyway stan elton john and watch rocketman did you know that’s the only movie ever  
> also kinda funny that i only have up to chapter 10 prewritten yet i’m still posting this in the middle of a pandemic. lmao @ the fact that i started writing this in like october and now look at the world. corona gonna exist in this fic? idk. haven’t decided yet


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